In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Prejudice & University

Aulelia

My university (VK, *waves back!*) has dug up a lot of controversy this year. First, Bristol had to contend with a posh aristocratic girl on a reality TV show who argued that black people are “really bad”, condemned multicultural Britain and called lesbians “sinister”. Definitely a cocktail for intense press coverage and disaster.

Buchanan also said:

“Britain is a complete mess. I just don’t appreciate people coming into our country and taking over our culture.”

“I’m for the British Empire and things. I’m for slavery, but that’s never going to come back.”

Don’t even get me started on what she said about people coming into Britain and taking over the culture. There was a facebook campaign to get her barred from entering! I think she has been allowed entry because obviously you cannot stop someone from having poisonous views like that. I am one of the only ethnic minority students in Bristol University; I don’t think there are more than 50 black people at this university. How does she think it feels for us to for her to think like that and air her views like that?

How is it okay to call black people “really bad” or call lesbians “sinister”? I know many people have dismissed this girl as being thick, naive etc. But I don’t. I truly don’t see it as an off-hand comment or an off-colour one. She is a girl who was succumbed to racism. Racism doesn’t need to have KKK hoods or derogatory terms to be hurt people. Sometimes it is the seemingly “naive” comments such as the ones she made that cause even more damage. I find her offensive and people like her offensive because they seem to continue this belief that people living in Britain should just “shut-up” and “get on with it” and stop complaining because “they are not really racists”. Well, that is not good enough for me. I have lived here for almost 11 years. There is no way that comments like hers are irrelevant. They hint to the problematic nature of some people who do not want to discuss race relations because forgetting about it seems like a better option.

I am not talking about this to give Bristol University bad press. Some of the funniest and joke people are at the university. What I don’t like is this invisible rule like it is taboo to discuss race.

35 thoughts on Prejudice & University

  1. I don’t really understand how anyone can see those comments as NOT racist. Saying lack people are “really bad” is the very definition of racist. It is simultaneously mind-mendingly idiotic, but that doesn’t make it not racist – it just makes it stupid AND racist.

  3. What the hell would a person have to do or say to be considered “really” racist in her eyes?!! “I’m for slavery…”?!!?!!!! For. fuck’s. sake.

    And as for “people coming into our country and taking over our culture”…..who, exactly, is this “our”? Surely she isn’t referring to people from Kenya, Uganda, India, Pakistan, Jamaica, Ireland, etc.—y’know, the people from all the places Britian invaded, colonized and stole from? The folks who weren’t took keen on all those Englishmen and -women barging in and taking over, suppressing, even outlawing the home culture (Irish Codes, anyone?)?!

    Talk about dipshit on parade. However, this dim bulb is unfortunately going to remain the public face of racism, while the more subtle versions get no press, no play—the very point of all the media attention on extremists like this one is to downplay and eventually redefine the more milder forms of racism as “not really racist.” And that’s on both sides of the Atlantic.

  6. Thanks for all the comments. I think the comments are blatantly racist but i find that most of the time, british society can be very “just forget about it”. and that is infuriating to say the least. i think she would be clever to keep her head down !!

    Fuzz, i am graduating next year!

  7. As a member of the Scottish diaspora, let me just say that I feel a personal responsibility to spit in her face if she ever gets near me: we should take care of our own trash.

  8. It is difficult for me to respond to race relations in Britain, but state-side it is the stuff that isn’t admitted to that is so damaging.

    The whole immigration debate (which always ends up referencing latinos) is an excellent example. I know people who swear up and down that their anti-immigrant opinions have nothing to do with racism. “They are here illegally. They are CRIMINALS. How can we sit by while they break the law?” I’ve been in numerous uncomfortable situations when I ask them to square such stances with their more liberal ideas about drug laws and drug criminals.

    This girl you are talking about is remarkably stupid to say such things publicly. She deserves a (figurative) public flogging.

    It sounds like the real issue here, though, is that only 50 black people attend your University. According to the CIA World Factbook (my go-to-source for all international fun-facts), Britain is 2% black and only 92.1% white. How do those ratios stack up with your experience?

    And is it taboo to talk about that?

  9. Racism, is not something I tolerate. Regardless of how “their parents raised them” or “they’re not *REALLY* racists” crap people like to say. People’s hate for others that look different just bewilder me.

    I don’t get it. And I don’t put up with it. If fighting doesn’t work, then I simply remove that person from my life. I’ve stopped dating people because of that.

  11. Oh, I wish her comments where naive.

    Another case of racism, prejudice, & university

    In 2000 Watson shocked an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, when he advanced a theory about a link between skin color and sex drive.

    His lecture, complete with slides of bikini-clad women, argued that extracts of melanin — which give skin its color — had been found to boost subjects’ sex drive.

    “That’s why you have Latin lovers,” he said, according to people who attended the lecture. “You’ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_re_eu/britain_controversial_scientist

  12. Well, she never said she for slavery just for black people. Maybe she has a more multicultural view of what slavery should be?

    /snark.

  13. She’s for slavery? Can she be barred from university on the grounds that she’s not only racist, but clearly too stupid to live?

    And yes, the statements “I’m opposed to people coming in and taking over our culture and things” and “I’m for the British Empire” coming from the same person are just…again, too willfully stupid and racist to live.

  15. Oh, I just read the part about her being an aristocrat. So she’s pissed off that her title no longer confers power and she can’t own any peasants. Well, boo-hoo.

  16. She is a girl who was succumbed to racism. Racism doesn’t need to have KKK hoods or derogatory terms to be hurt people. Sometimes it is the seemingly “naive” comments such as the ones she made that cause even more damage.

    She sounds very much like some Columbia students I’ve encountered who didn’t see anything wrong with racial stereotyping or with “being racist”…including one who became confrontational at a friend’s party when his assertions were called out by the rest of us.

    Oh, I just read the part about her being an aristocrat. So she’s pissed off that her title no longer confers power and she can’t own any peasants. Well, boo-hoo.

    Entomologista,

    Her tone here is reminiscent of the gross entitlement I’ve encountered among trust-fund babies in undergrad and on several different private school campuses in the New England area. Correct me, if I’m wrong…but I think one big reason for those of her ilk making such statements about bringing back the British Empire may be an underlying realization that without family wealth, titles, and connections propping them up…they are ill-equipped to compete on their own merits.

  17. It’s not the stupid racists who are the dangerous ones. It’s the ones who are smart or at least clever and also racist who are dangerous. Racism doesn’t derive from lack of intelligence, it derives from stupendous ignorance – in the case of this girl, it’s clearly willful ignorance – combined with a lack of empathy for other human beings.

    I don’t understand all this stuff about “not being really racist”. She’s for slavery, she’s for the British Empire, she thinks that Black people are bad… she’s the dictionary illustrative photo for “racist”.

  18. (Not to say that stupid racists aren’t dangerous at all – any virulent racists are. But it’s the smart ones and the connected ones who are more likely to get airtime and the opportunity to spread their views. That’s what I meant!)

  19. I’d just like to point out in re the Watson idiocy that my albino husband has a higher sex drive than practically any other guy I know.

    Really, do these people actually *think* before spouting their shit?

  20. Read a Standard editorial in defence of James Watson on the train this evening, got me so frustrated and fired up I missed my damn stop. The usual shit about “thought police” and his having said nothing “beyond argument” and getting shown the red card for, you know, implying that there might be genetic differences between the races or sexes. Motherfucker, the man said black people are dumber than white people! Like little cabbage said, it’s practically the dictionary definition of racism. And yet there’s still asshats who will try to pass it off as innocuous or ‘free speech’ and fuckin’ defend it.

    Still a little annoyed, as you can tell.

  21. Alara, I’m a very, very white Scottish American, and my sex drive is really high. My wife is a really white Polish American, and her sex drive is really high.

    Watson is a bigot on so many levels; he’s racist, sexist and fatist (he says fat people are lazy at work because they’re “satisfied”, while thin people are “hungry”), and he believes that since he won a Nobel (by stealing Ros Franklin’s photo) that people will accept his pseudoscientific evo-psych bullshit as though it had support. Unfortunately, he is often correct that people will credit his bullshit.

  22. Racism doesn’t need to have KKK hoods or derogatory terms to be hurt people. Sometimes it is the seemingly “naive” comments such as the ones she made that cause even more damage. I find her offensive and people like her offensive because they seem to continue this belief that people living in Britain should just “shut-up” and “get on with it” and stop complaining because “they are not really racists”. Well, that is not good enough for me. I have lived here for almost 11 years. There is no way that comments like hers are irrelevant. They hint to the problematic nature of some people who do not want to discuss race relations because forgetting about it seems like a better option.

    She sounds very much like some Columbia students I’ve encountered who didn’t see anything wrong with racial stereotyping or with “being racist”…including one who became confrontational at a friend’s party when his assertions were called out by the rest of us.

    yes, the dangerous idea that the only racists are those wearing the Klan hoods has invaded many places where people out to know better. upon joining an internet community centered around what i felt to be a very progressive band (rilo kiley) i was shocked at the outright hostily directed at any mention of the ongoing problem of racism. so many young, mostly white, kids and young adults who view themselves as having “moved beyond racism,” without seeing that all they’ve moved beyond is the recognition of racism.

    to me, this points to the success the racists and republicans have had in distorting MLK’s words about judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. many young people have internalized this as an injunction not to ever notice color. so they claim not to notice that almost all the people being put in prison are Black, that almost all the people being deported or dying in the desert are Latino, that almost all the people being labeled terrorists are Arab.
    i could be generous and call it “naivete,” but i prefer to call it what it is: “willful ignorance” (to use Susan Faludi’s term).

  23. How is ANY of what she said not racist?

    Slavery is good?

    Bring back the bleeding empire?

    No, sorry, not buying it.

    This woman is racist, classist, homophobic. Willful ignorance bleeds out of her.

    Oh, and “our culture”? We’re a teeny, tiny little island. Seriously. Maps show the British Isles larger than they really are. There’s been almost no points throughout our history when we weren’t being invaded by or invading someone else, and “English” heritage just means “I’ve got a fair bit of everything in me, probably”.

  24. Yannow, I was convinced you were talking about Emily the posh Bristol bird on Big Brother who called one of her housemates “n*gger” and got booted off. She got excused as being “naive” too. Then I clicked the link. Apparently there’s two of them! It’s weird how people are willing to give a pretty blonde girl the benefit of the doubt. At least, when assuming she’s some variation on “stupid” is the benefit of the doubt.
    And obviously she was allowed entry to stir up controversy and get column inches. Reality TV producers have got to be the most cynical humans on earth. If they don’t hate people before they start, then the job makes them that way.

  25. I meant to make a longer comment but I got too caught up in the coincidence. But Brits who have a chip on their shoulder about their lost empire, and there are more of them than you’d expect around, are teh suck. They’re even prejudiced against Irish people (although most of them don’t think they are.)
    Also the Emily vs Charlie BB thing was pretty horrible; you had a posh, snidely bullying (ie nasty in a feminine way) blonde vs a “chavvy” openly aggressive (masculine nastiness) black girl, and it was very very unpleasant how the media crawled all over themselves to make excuses for the clearly-in-the-wrong posh blonde. Weirdly, only the trash tabloids attacked her, because they actually investigated her life and found she had a history of racist bullying. In the broadsheets and the (spit!) Mail,
    the opinion columns were all: “poor Emily, she was just trying to be hip-hop! Let’s make allowances!”

    Ahem. I guess that rankled with me more than I knew at the time. It just reminded me so much of how people discuss sexual assault cases, with every possible allowance being made for the behaviour of the privileged-class perpetrator, and the victim being ruthlessly scrutinised “she used that word too! she didn’t complain at the time! she complained too much afterwards! she’s milking it for attention!”

    Also, British class issues. DO NOT WANT.

  26. I lived in London for a year, and it seemed to me that there were tons more cultures and traditions on display in multicultural Britain than I’ve seen in the States, even in the super-progressive Bay Area, where I am. What I also noticed was a much more vocal opposition to these immigrants. I’m not saying Brits are more racist. At all.
    Rather, I think I was hearing people being more honest about the views that they have.
    In California, but the US also, we’ve become ever so politically correct, which has hidden a lot of the nastiness.

  28. Oh yeah, that Emily girl! She was an absolute idiot as well. She made herself seem like she didn’t have a clue as to the implication of what she said.

    The N word debate will go on forever but it is symbolic of the problem with all derogatory words and how using them is NOT okay. i wish the lucys and emilys of this world would see that!!

  29. I’m always shocked in Britain at how the cultural norm that (what in the states we call) passive-aggressiveness is seen as more polite than (what we call) being direct and calling people out for stuff. This interacts with the utter lack of interpersonal experience white brits have with people of color in horrible ways. Like making people excuse these horrible expressions on tv – they see the problem as rudeness, rather than the attitude itself. “People think ugly things, it’s embarrassing to watch them, go away.”

    However, the idea of ‘reality tv’ is really offensive – I never watch it because I’m sure in the parts we don’t see, folks are really pressured to do things, or outright told what to say for dramatic effect. For a concrete example, we have no idea how many worse things were said off-camera to agree with her – no context at all. And the point of putting her on tv is to spark lots of interest (and opposition), but at a real cost of making a people of color in very-white parts of Britain feel even more isolated and vulnerable. Manipulative and demeaning, all around, telling the audience “whatever you hear people say, this is what they really think, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  30. That was awful. I remember reading about it in the paper when it was filmed, but it was overshadowed by the Jade Goody Celebrity Big Brother racism versus Shilpa Shetty, so it didn’t make much of an impact because I don’t think it was screened then. and I still can’t believe why people would think that those kind of views aren’t racist. Ignorant, sure, but that doesn’t mean they get a free pass to air them without being called out for the crap that they are!

    It’s bad press for a university that is probably no more racist than most, so I hope nobody thinks that she represents the university in her so-old-fashioned-they-are-stone-age opinions. I was hoping that somebody would take her to task and expose her bile for what it is- neither funny, nor innocent, nor acceptable.

    And then the renowned scientist James Watson declared this week that blacks just aren’t as smart as whites. He wanted to give a lecture about it at the Science museum in London. I guess that’s as good a proof as any that being good in one field doesnt’ make you a decent person, or knowledgeable about anything else.

    Oh, and somebody else also declared women just can’t be geniuses, so I guess the white middle classes are runnign business as usual.

    London is really multicultural- I know most of the people I count myself lucky to know are diverse, and I personally love that. However, there are places where there is a lot more hate on both sides, and there just isn’t much integration. We really need to work on integrating communities, because I think a lot of this bile stems from not actually having much experience of other cultures and races, and how like you they really are. Whils people like this woman don’t deserve an easy ride, at all, we need to work to make the next generation realise that these views are wrong.

  31. Well, Aulelia, you really hit a nerve here, based on some of the responses in the Special Moderation Queue. We may have to have another troll contest soon.

  34. Ah, no I didn’t. Thanks, octopod. I did see somewhere else do a pretty good job (I lost the link, alas). But The link you posted goes a lot further.

  35. delurking just because im bristle born and bred, never went to uni though. just wanted to say, alreet me babber 😀

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